Medical billing large Episource is notifying hundreds of thousands of individuals throughout the USA that their private and well being data was stolen in a cyberattack earlier this yr.
The breach impacts greater than 5.4 million folks, in keeping with an inventory with the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies, making it one of many largest healthcare breaches of the yr to date.
Episource, owned by medical insurance large UnitedHealth Group’s subsidiary Optum, gives billing adjustment to the medical doctors, hospitals, and different organizations that work within the healthcare business. As such, the corporate handles giant quantities of sufferers’ private and medical information to course of claims by means of their medical insurance.
In notices filed in California and Vermont on Friday, Episource stated a felony was capable of “see and take copies” of affected person and member information from its techniques through the weeklong breach ending February 6.
The stolen data consists of private data, reminiscent of names, postal and electronic mail addresses, and telephone numbers, in addition to protected well being information, together with medical report numbers, and information referring to medical doctors, diagnoses, drugs, take a look at outcomes, imaging, care, and different remedy. The stolen information additionally accommodates medical insurance data, like well being plans, insurance policies, and member numbers.
Episource didn’t describe the character of the incident, however Sharp Healthcare, one of many firms that works with Episource and was affected by the cyberattack, informed its prospects that the Episource hack was brought on by ransomware.
That is the newest cybersecurity incident to hit UnitedHealth in recent times.
Change Healthcare, one of many largest firms within the U.S. healthcare business that processes billions of well being transactions annually, was hacked by a ransomware gang in February 2024, resulting in the theft of greater than 190 million Individuals’ private and well being data. The cyberattack was the biggest healthcare information breach in U.S. historical past.
A number of months later, UnitedHealth’s Optum unit left an inner chatbot utilized by workers to ask about claims uncovered to the web.
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